Photos Forging Press - WIP

[JTknives]

If you are guessing, don't use it. Either have a hydraulic rebuilder do the job, or get a new one. It is not smart to use an unknown part as the heart of your expensive press build.

I fully agree, it just fell in my lap and I hate to waste somthing that could be used. I had planned on just buying one anyways.

 

[JTknives]

Guess it's update time. I'm getting close to being able to start tacking everything togather.
I got the upper and lower tubes cut to except the cylinder and drilled the pin holes. Yesterday was spent cleaning rust off everything and welding up the corners of the upright tubes where thy where torch cut off of some mating parts. I then used a flap disk to clean up the bearing surfaces on the tubes. Next I spent like 2 hours moving tubes around into different positions to find where everything fit best. This is all salvaged steel so noting is perfectly straight or even. But I think I got her whipped and ready to go. Today I plan on cutting the die plate backers out of the 3/4" plate and drilling the holes for the side guides. Oh and I got the VFD, programmed it and wired it to the 10HP motor. Works like a charm so now I need to find a case for that.

 

[Busto]

Hey Spiderman...How do you get your tools to stick to the ceiling like that??? Mine just hit and bounce off...

 

[JTknives]

It's my dumb phone and I don't know how to solve this problem. It is quite frustrating believe me. Any way I was able to get the die backer plates cut today befor work. I had my doubts that my small hypertherm 30XP would cut 3/4" plate but it actually did a rather good job. I will then fill the tube radius where it meets this plate with weld.

My thinking is if I fill that gap it will add more strength to the round corners and help it resist flexing down.

Here is the motor and vfd wired up temporarily to test vfd functions and motor condition.

 

[Natlek]

My thinking is if I fill that gap it will add more strength to the round corners and help it resist flexing down.

I like what you do so far . If you have doubt about strength you can reinforce open sides ? I think that will triple strength of that part ?

 

[DAMNENG]

JT
First let me say It looks good.
Just some food for thought.

I don't see an easy way to change dies. I change dies quite often and have my dies so they slide in place.

The only real concern is the height as compared to the base size. Having it fall over would be inconvenient at best and fatal at worst.
Also you show four casters in you diagram. When casters rotate it changes the point of balance on them. Also with four casters it is free to move in any direction, unless they are chocked. I would recommend two fixed wheels and two casters. If you put the fixed wheel in front, the lift point in the frame doesn't change with movement. Asuming the press is stored with the back against the wall. If you pull out the press to use it and chock the casters so they are swung back away from the frame, this will give you the widest foot print, and the most stable.
Jim A

 

[Jesse Latham]

JT, two solutions for the pictures. 1 stand on your head, 2 turn the phone upside down. LOL just kidding. Great build.

 

[Brian Stucker]

How well does that vfd run that motor? Is it single phase in and 3 phase out?

 

[JTknives]

I did a short video of un boxing it and and then how it runs the motor. I have not ran the pump with it yet but I did do a simple load test which got it up to a 25amp draw and it seams ok motor did not slow down at all. It has a billion programming features and the manual is actually rather good. Yes 1ph in and 3ph 7.5kw out. The vfd will need to be put in a sealed case with a fan and filter but that's not a big deal.

 

[Brian Stucker]

Nice. I have been wondering how well those vfd' work on those bigger motors. Looking foreword to seeing this beast in action.

 

[JTknives]

I have been making changes as I have been going along. I thought it was about time to change the solid model and show you guys the direction I'm going. The motor and pump will be mounted under the base and bolted the the I beam cross suport. The tank will also be dropped and hung off the ibeam. Hoses will come up through holes in the ibeam and run to the controlvalve and then up to the cylinder. Right now the center of gravity is at the rear of the bottom die. So being that this thing weighs 1400lbs it has to tip quite a bit in order to actually tip forward. If need be I can weight the bottom down even more. I like not having the front casters out really far. I don't like things in the way where I'm forging. The press will bolt to the ibeam so it can be taken off if and when it needs to be moved long distance. This means that the base keeps the motor, pump and hydraulic tank with it. I have thought about installing quick detach fitting on the pump line and return hose.

 

[JTknives]

Another update, I first want to apologise for any pictures that are upside down or sideways. After checking everything over I realised the ends of the big 12" tube bowed out after cutting. There must have been built up stress from manufacturing and was released when I cut it. So I solved it by grinding and welding and everything is all good now. I welded some 1/2" thick gussets across the inside of the tube. I made them shorter then the ID of the tube and cranked the welder to 11 and did the hottest fattest beads I could muster. And poof it pulled the flare back in lol. I also placed my surplus center order so I'm waiting for that. The plan is to be ready to mount those parts next weekend when thy are delivered.

Did full penetration hot welds with 6011 rods. The welds are not super great looking but that was not what I was going for. I was going for max heat and max "warp" pull.

The plan is to do this same thing to the top and bottom tube as well which will also added a bit more support and draw down any bow that is holding the uprights out.

This is my order from surplus center. Right after I placed the order (4am) I realised I forgot a pressure relief valve. A quick call (4:30am) and the kind lady had me all fixed up. It only added $2 to the shipping vs the $16 if I ordered it by its self.

The reasion for the relief valve is because I'm going with a solenoid valve. Because I'm going for pure speed over tons I opted for a larger valve then I could get from surplus center. I lucked out and found a rather large one on eBay with the perfect configuration for under $60. It's missing 3 Orings on the bottom ports hence the cheaper price lol. It has 1/2" ports in the valve and I paired that with a baseplate with 3/4"npt A,B,P and T ports. I'm going with 3/4" npt as much as I can becaus 1/2" hose and fittings have a much larger pressure drop per foot/fitting then 3/4" stuff. Flow does not suffer much as long as you stay under the 20ft/sec flow rate. But becaus I'm already on the low side of tonnage I can't afford to loose a lot of pressure between the pump and cylinder.

So here are my specs according to the excell sheet I put togather. It has been quite helpful in tossing numbers back and forth to decide which way I wanted to go. So the press should do 20tons at a fixed rate of 1.5" down and 2" up (close). I will combine this with a rocking foot peddle and a relay so I will have auto and manual mode. I also will install a micro switch on a slide that I can set for max travel up and down. I thought about doing a timer relay and I still might but if I have switches to control up and down I'm not limited by time.

 

[Ian Fifelski]

Glad to see the price sheet. I was going to ask if you could show the budget. Very cool project, I will most likely be referencing it when I am ready to build mine.

 

[JTknives]

I been in the shop laying beads all night

 

[JTknives]

Glad to see the price sheet. I was going to ask if you could show the budget. Very cool project, I will most likely be referencing it when I am ready to build mine.

Once I'm done I will put a complete list togather. I have kinda been designing as I go, it hard to do all th designing on the computer. Once you start laying stuff out you see things that will work better.

 

[JTknives]

Was able to complete the upper and lower die assembly's. I ended up dumping almost 10lbs of 7018 (6011 root) into the die backer. Filling the radius on the large 12" die tubes just sucked up the rods. I drilled the holes in the backer plates first befor I welded them to the tubes. Then after welding I used a hand drill and used the hole to guide the bit through the tube. After that I layed out the holes on the upper die assembly and side guides. The holes in the guides are 3/4" and the holes in the upper die are 1". This give gives me a little wiggle room to adjust the guides. I have two options for bolting the guides in place. First I can use 6" long bolts that go through the entire upper die. But if the upright tubes are not even I can use 1.5" long bolts and put nuts on the inside.

Man I love step bits, I have drilled more 3/4" holes with this one bit then I can count.

The bolts are not tight, that's why the guides are setting crooked.

 

[Natlek]

Like ! You're a wizard for plasma and for welding I noticed that finally gravity started to work

 

[JTknives]

Ok so after many late nights staying up till the sun came up I figured out my cycling circuit. In a nut shell you turn the press on, the motor fires up and starts pumping fluid. There is a control switch on the press. You switch this on and the press is now ready to go. First thing the press has an upper and lower limit switch that is adjustable. The upper switch sets how far you want to retract and the lower sets how far you want to press. This will also be used for controlling finished stock thickness so I won't need kiss blocks. So once you turn on the control switch the press raises the ram to the upper limit switch and switches the solonoide off. You then step on the peddle and it moves down till it hits the lower limit switch. It then automatically switches the solonoide and retracts to the upper switch. Once it reaches this switch it cycles again and as long as the foot peddle is held it will cycle up and down. After a press cycle you let up the foot peddle and the ram stops at the top switch.

I quickly realised I could have a massave problem if the press could not reach the lower switch. It would in fact lock the press up and it would not retract becaus it was looking for the foot peddle command at the top of the return stroke. Basically it goes up and says oh your still holding the peddle so I will do another stroke. If you released the peddle mid down stroke it would stop but in order to get it to retract the cylinder would have to complete the down stroke and contact the lower switch. This also ment I could not not use the lower switch and manually control the press amount. So after much head scratching and stacks of circuit sketches I solved it last night and it's a thing of wonder to behold. Now as soon as you let off the foot peddle it retracts to the upper switch, no mater where it's at in the stroke cycle. Very simple components and no micro controllers just 2 relays, 2 switches and the foot control.

This is the circuit simulation, 5sec between each step so you can see how each part works. You will see 3 LED's on the right. The top and bottom are simulating the top and bottom solonoide on the valve. The middle is just a light to show that the press is switched into neutral and the valve is off and bypassing to the tank.
The foot switch is bottom right and the top and bottom limit switches are in the middle with one up top and one down at the bottom to the left of the foot control switch. The upper limit switch is a Normally open switch and the bottom is a normally closed switch.

 

[JTknives]

What hydraulic fluid are you using with your press. I checked with the manufacture (Eaton) of my pump and thy said there gear pumps use a fluid with a viscosity between 10-43 cSt at operating temp. But what is the standard operating temp of a forging press?

 

[Tyshoots]

I don't own a press. We change out 3000 gallons of hydraulic fluid every year at work. All I use is AW-32. It works at -20 and 100.